Nowadays, although many documents are prepared using personal computers or handwriting, printing or photocopying is often needed to present the final form of documents. In printing or photocopying documents, the documents are made in individual and separate sheets, which have to be bound together as a consistent copy of documents. Nowadays, stapling is one of the most commonly and readily available binding techniques for loose pages of documents.
The implementation of a conventional stapler is to utilize staples that are each formed by two spaced pins or legs and are received and stored in the stapler. With a striking operation carried out by the stapler, the staples are sequentially and successively struck out of the stapler to force the pins thereof into the documents to complete the binding of the documents. The tips of the pins that extend through the documents are bent to fix the sheets of the documents together. Since the stapler has the advantages of being cheap and being convenient to use, many offices, schools, hospitals, homes and other places often regard the staplers as an essential accessory.
The staples which are placed in a stapler have different specifications. The most commonly used in a small size staple, which is referred to as No. 10 staple and has a binding capability of around 15 pages of documents. For documents having pages more than 15, a larger size stapler and the associated staples must be used, such as No. 3 staples, which is capable to bind some 30 pages.
For this reason, staplers that are capable of operation with two sizes of staples are available in the market. However, this kind of stapler only has single staple magazine to receive either small size staples or large size staples in an alternate manner. In other words, the stapler must be opened to remove the original staples before another size of staples can be used. Apparently, such a known stapler has drawbacks, such as inefficiency and inconvenience for exchanging the other size of staples or reloading of the staples. In other words, it results in lack of applicability for blinding. Furthermore, the conventional stapler might result in hurting the operator if the operator's fingers grab at a pin plate, which disposed on a base of the stapler, in exchanging the staples or reloading the staples. In addition, after exchanging the other size of staples or reloading the staples, it is necessary to apply a downward force to the cover to close it up and making the staples in a position. As a result, it is always wasting the first staple because when a downward force is applied to the cover, the first staple is inadvertently struck out of the stapler without binding any document.
In addition, because a force ratio of output to input of the conventional stapler is 1:1, the known stapler needs more force on binding more pages of documents. It is usually wasting the staples because the large force may easily make the staple slanted and not penetrating into the documents to be bound. Furthermore, the known stapler that can accommodate staples of different sizes is bulky in size and is also very heavy and cannot be closed to a compact form. All these make it difficult to carry and store easily.
Consequently, there is a need to develop a stapler operable with staples of different sizes and switchable among different operation modes without opening the stapler. And reloading the stapler can be easily done by removing a staple magazine therefrom. Furthermore, the stapler can also function as a punch that carries out perforating operation on documents. The stapler can also be closed to a compact form to ease storage thereof. Therefore, the stapler has the advantages of saving staples, increasing variety of use and enhancing convenience and the safety of operation and reloading staples. In addition, the stapler also has the advantage of being convenient to carry.